Any child of the ’80s who also grew up in the Twin Cities has the break from Janet Jackson’s “Escapade” ingrained in their DNA. Or, as Gawker’s Rich Juzwiak once put it on Twitter:
Over half of the reason I'd one day like to release a single is getting to yell "Minneapolis!" during the break.
—
Rich Juzwiak (@RichJuz) April 24, 2012
Twenty-five years ago this Friday, Janet released her long-awaited follow up to the Grammy-winning Control, which itself was a benchmark for do-over “debut” albums. As great as Control was, Rhythm Nation was a true pop revelation, one that Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis’s pristine, tight production provided a fitting bookend for a decade. From Prince’s Dirty Mind and Controversy all the way through RN1814, the ’80s pretty clearly belonged to “the Minneapolis sound.” Rhythm Nation racked up an astonishing seven top five singles, with four reaching #1, and is today generally regarded as her creative if not commercial peak.
To honor a quarter-century with one of the most consistently enjoyable hybrids of pop, R&B, dance and industrial beats, we’re ranking out the album’s tracks from worst to best. (Note: Memorable as some of the many, many interludes throughout the album were, we’re omitting them from these rankings.) Don’t agree with our choices? Sound off below!
——-
12. “Black Cat”
We’re gonna lose the rockers right off the bat here. But despite its very late ’80s hair metal sheen, this track, the only one on the album that credits Janet as the sole songwriter, just isn’t working on the same level as the rest of the LP. It’s rudimentary chords and blustery lyrics might be faithful to the style its harnessing, but that doesn’t make it any more listenable.
——-
11. “Livin’ in a World (They Didn’t Make)”
There’s a fine line between being serious and being morbid, and it’s fairly safe to say that the outro to this power ballad about how the world’s evil corrupts the pure minds of children — which aurally recreates a true-life story about a schoolyard shooting that killed multiple students — crosses that line. This track closed out side one of the cassette version, and I always wondered whether some listeners suddenly found themselves too depressed to flip the tape over.
——-
10. “State of the World”
The album opens with three testaments to Janet’s commitment to social improvement, and while the beats here are as steely and of-the-moment as the other two, it still feels a little bit like the middle child. It’s not that it’s bad, it’s just a little superfluous. “Drugs and crime spreadin’ on the streets/People can’t find enough to eat.” Show, don’t tell, Miss Jackson.
——-
09. “Lonely”
Janet’s propensity to sequence major chunks of her albums with ballad after ballad eventually got out of hand — 1993’s otherwise incredibly strong janet. sort of dribbles to a close, and in All for You, she cuts momentum off entirely with a mid-album four-ballad stretch. Rhythm Nation keeps the count at just three, and thankfully they’re all incredibly sexy. The mellow, melancholy “Lonely” is by design a bit of a wallflower, but it gets our vote as the most underrated cut on the entire album.
——-
08. “The Knowledge”
That sped up TV cartoon sound that Jam and Lewis keep dropping in throughout “The Knowledge”? Pure genius! Add to that Janet’s undying Q&A session — Bigotry? No! Illiteracy? No! — and you have a definitive new jack swing deep cut.
——-
07. “Come Back to Me”
It’s all about those strings. Those gorgeous, grief-stricken strings. The bittersweet break-up song skirts the edge of jerking tears for its entire, mournful length. But when those strings kick up during the extended outro, as Buster Poindexter said in Scrooged, “Niagara Falls.”
——-
06. “Someday is Tonight”
Janet made much ado about waiting awhile in 1986. By 1989, though, she closed her album by lighting candles, drawing a bubble bath, setting up a plate of oysters on ice, and stoking the fires of every listener within reach. With suggestively descending chords and Herb Alpert’s damn near pornographic muted trumpet interjections, “Someday is Tonight” is … really, really dirty. It’s a good look.
——-
05. “Miss You Much”
Now we’re moving from the merely great tracks into the territory of deathless classics. First out of the gate was “Miss You Much,” released in advance of the album and probably the biggest reassurance imaginable that the entire project would be nothing if not a step up from the already indomitable Control. As another critic put it, “Miss You Much” carries over the earlier album’s unique blend of bubblegum and funk beautifully.
——-
04. “Escapade”
“Minneapolis!” Ain’t no funk in this house. A sugar rush through and through, “Escapade” almost never was. Originally, Janet wanted to include a cover of Martha & the Vandellas’ “Nowhere To Run” on the album. Instead, she, Jam & Lewis strived to create the sort of song that would always get people on their feet at basketball games. They hit the target and then some. As Janet’s career progressed, escapism would define her more and more, but on this album, it’s the exception to the rule and it’s like a refreshing sip of effervescent soda.
——-
03. “Alright”
“Alright” was a comparative underperformer as single. It “only” got to #4 on Billboard’s charts, maybe coasting a bit on the album’s massive coattails. Still, of all the many songs on the album, it’s actually this one that arguably comes the closest to reflecting “the Minneapolis sound.” Behind all that industrial noise and that tangy funk, there’s also a healthy dose of Midwestern sunshine within that sound. People always seem to overlook that. “Alright” is everlasting.
——-
02. “Love Will Never Do (Without You)”
As a mark of just how huge an impact Rhythm Nation had, the amazing midtempo jam “Love Will Never Do (Without You)” was released as a single and went to #1 in 1991 … two years after the album was initially released! By that time, Janet had ditched the foot soldier duds and donned a bustier, having fully reinvented herself as a desert sex kitten. Or a goddess. Or both.
——-
01. “Rhythm Nation”
We know some people took major issue when we ranked “Purple Rain” the worst track from the album of the same name. No such issues here. “Rhythm Nation” truly is a massive, ruthless, militant, hyperactive mission statement. We are all very much still a part of a Rhythm Nation.